The view of whites toward blacks [Letter]

August 28, 2014

Wow! Roye Templeton's letter, "Let's talk about white racism" (Aug. 24), nailed it. Without a doubt, the root cause of the race problem in America is racism and it's white racism, pure and simple, front and center. I just turned 82 this month and I still remember both of my parents being pulled off a sound truck and arrested in the early 1940's in Baltimore City for protesting police brutality. It's 2014 and nothing in that regard has really changed.

A great many whites in this country have couched themselves in a comfort zone and not in reality, primarily because of the tremendous strides made during the civil rights era. Conservative TV pundits and print journalists routinely pooh-pooh the extent and depth of racism in America. While they claim to see racism as appalling, they see them as isolated and sporadic occurrences, an infrequent blemish or scab on the "exceptionalism" of America.

When one has never felt the foot of oppression and deprivation, one's perspective is oftentimes skewed and bent toward analytical paralysis.